"By Jove, there's the old man." The eagle eye of Mr. Jones had picked his employer unerringly from amidst the multitude. "He sees the car," the stenographer continued, as one announcing races, on distant tracks, to interested spectators. "Wilkins is kidding him. He's getting sore. We'd better beat it." Regardless of previous fearlessness, Mr. Jones guided his companion into the entrance of a building from which vantage point they watched the meeting of Obadiah and his daughter. "By crackie, he's hot. Everybody is laughing at him." To prove the truth of his own assertion, Mr. Jones threw back his head and guffawed cruelly at the embarrassment of his employer. One o'clock found the two clerks at their desks. Obadiah was a punctual man. Always on time himself, he demanded it of his employees. Today, however, minutes flew by with no sign of the manufacturer's return. At one thirty, Mr. Jones entered Kelly's room to confer in regard to this unwonted tardiness. Resting his elbows upon the bookkeeper's desk he projected his head within the area of light in which his colleague labored and submitted a sporting proposition. "I'll bet my hat that the old man is raising the deuce somewhere." Kelly inspected the illuminated face of the stenographer with interest, as if the brilliant rays exposed flaws which he had not previously noted. Disregarding the wager, he replied with emphasis, "You said a mouthful." Mr. Jones displayed marked uneasiness. "I'm surprised that he is not back. He had important matters to attend to." The stenographer waxed mysterious. "Only this morning he called me in. 'Mr. Jones,' sez he, 'I must have your invaluable assistance, today, on a matter of great importance. I couldn't get along without your help. Please, don't step out without warning me.'" Apparently Kelly regarded the stenographer's secret revelations lightly. "You told him that you didn't have the time?" he suggested with a grin. Mr. Jones attempted to frown down unseemly levity regarding serious matters. Kelly burst into laughter. "Gee, if I wasn't here to keep you off the old man, he sure would suffer." Mr. Jones changed the subject, before such frivolity. "He ought to fire that feller Ike. I'll bet he's to blame for the whole thing. The idea of getting a young lady mixed up in a mess like that. He ought to be fired." Mr. Jones' soul revolted at the notoriety which had befallen his employer's daughter. He became thoughtful and then confidential. "That girl is a pippin, Kelly. A regular pippin." "You've said it." The bookkeeper's emphasis spoke volumes. "Did you ever think about her?" "Sure," admitted Kelly with candor, "lots of times." "That girl lives a lonesome life in that big house with only the colored servants and her father," alleged the knowing Mr. Jones. "What fun does she ever have? The old man thinks that she is only a baby. If she has a nurse and is taken out every day for an airing, he imagines nothing else is necessary."